CAROLINE LUCRE TI A HERS CH EL. 741 



more and more eager for his return, and on the 2d of April, 1764, to 

 the great joy of the family, he made his appearance. The visit was 

 brief, and gave no hope that he would settle in Hanover. In describ- 

 ing it, Caroline is spoken of as " the poor little unnoticed girl," and the 

 event as standing in her memory "fraught with anguish too deep for 

 words." She was disappointed in her hope of enjoying this visit of 

 her brother, for it came at the time of her confirmation. She says : 



""With my constant attendance at church and school, besides the time I was 

 employed in doing the drudgery of the scullery, it was but seldom I could make 

 one of the group when the family were assembled together." 



The Sunday fixed for his departure was the very day on which she 

 was to receive her first communion : 



" The church was crowded and the door open. The Hamburger post-wagon 

 passed at eleven, bearing away my dear brother, from whom I had been obliged 

 to part at eight o'clock. It was within a dozen yards from the open door ; the 

 postilion giving a smettering blast on his horn. Its effect on my shattered 

 nerves I will not attempt to describe, nor what I felt for days and weeks after. 

 I wish it were possible to say what I wish to say, without feeling anew that 

 feverish wretchedness which accompanied my walk in the afternoon with some 

 of my school-companions, in my black-silk dress and bouquet of artificial flowers, 

 the same which had served my sister on her bridal day. I could think of noth- 

 ing but that on my return I should find nobody but my disconsolate father and 

 mother, for Alexander's engagements allowed him to be with us only at certain 

 hours, and Jacob was seldom at home except to dress and take his meals." 



The last years of her father's life are thus described : 



"Changes of abode, not always for the better; anxieties, on account of 

 Alexander's prospects, and Jacob's vagaries; disappointment at seeing his 

 daughter grow up w^ithout the education he had hoped to give her were the 

 circumstances under which the worn-out suiferer struggled through the last 

 three years of his life, copying music at every spare moment, assisting at a con- 

 cert only a few weeks before his death, and giving lessons until he was obliged 

 to keep wholly to his bed. He was released from his sufi"erings at the com- 

 paratively early age of sixty-one, on the 22d of March, 1767, leaving to his chil- 

 dren little more than the heritage of his good example, unblemished character, 

 and those musical talents which he had so carefully educated, and by which he 

 probably hoped the more gifted of his sons would attain to eminence." 



Caroline was now seventeen, with only the barest rudiments of 

 education, and for the next two years the time passed uneventfully in 

 household occupations ; but at the age of twenty a new turn was sud- 

 denly given to her thoughts by the arrival of letters from William, 

 proposing that she should join him at Bath, in England. 



" To make trial if by his instruction I might not become a useful singer for 

 his winter concerts and oratorios, he advised my brother Jacob to give me some 

 lessons by way of beginning ; but that, if after a trial of two years we should 

 not find it answer our expectation, he would bring me back again. This at first 

 seemed agreeable to all parties, but, by the time I had set my heart upon it, Jacob 

 began to turn the whole scheme into ridicule, and, of course, he never heard the 

 sound of my voice except in speaking, and yet I was left in the harassing uncer 



